Tag: Zak Jensen

Bellator 52 goes down tomorrow night at the L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Lake Charles, Louisiana, featuring the quarterfinals of the promotion’s second heavyweight tournament. We’ll be honest — the eight-man bracket isn’t exactly overflowing with star-power, and watching 265-pounders slug it out is always a mixed bag. But if Cruz vs. Johnson isn’t enough to satisfy your hunger for combat this weekend, you might as well DVR the MTV2 broadcast. (Do it right now, before you forget.) Here’s how the HW quarters shake out:

- Blagoi Ivanov is that dude who outpointed Fedor Emelianenko in combat sambo in 2008, back when beating Fedor at anything seemed like a very big deal. He’s now 4-0 with 1 no-contest in his MMA career, and won his Bellator debut in March by TKO’ing William Penn in one round.

Two of the three opening acts were short and sweet and the feature bouts went the distance, but it wasn’t hard to figure out who won any of the fights at last night’s Bellator 47. If anything, I’m more confident in the disparity of skill sets featured in the tournament semi-finals than I am the fights where someone got steamrolled. That’s not to say it was a bore to watch, and it’s not to say that the tournament finale won’t impress. It is to say if you missed the action, keep reading and I’ll clue you in.

The combined weight of the two fighters in the evening’s opening bout nearly equaled that of the four tournament competitors. Realizing that fans don’t want to see two big boys huffing and puffing at the start of round two, Zak Jensen and Neil Grove did us a solid and came out swinging in a fight that proved that the best defense is a good offense (well, at least it proved true for Grove). The heavyweights went right to work trading bombs, with Grove dropping in the first five seconds. He secured a single and the two continued to hockey-fight on the ground before Grove went for an ankle lock. Jensen countered by punching Grove in the gut, which reminded “Goliath” how fun it was to punch and he released the hold. A failed triangle attempt by Jensen ended up with Grove in his guard raining down blows and drawing the referee stoppage at 2:00 into the first round.

Bellator 47 pops off this weekend, continuing the featherweight tournament and bridging the gap between season four and five. Unlike some promotions that can’t seem to pronounce “tournament” without fighters getting injured or insulted (or both), Bellator’s grand prix action will roll on in Ontario, Canada, where the contestants will have to brave the bitter arctic cold and vicious penguins as they fight to advance toward a payday and a title shot with current champion (and Baddest Man on the Planet) Joe Warren.

This just in: we’re being told by someone who lives in Canada that it is summer there, and temperatures will be significantly less brutal than we normally expect. We’ll take him at his word, but if anyone can take readings in the area and report back, we’d appreciate it.

Either way, we expect the action to be hot.

For the tourney, Marlon Sandro is matched up with Nazareno Malegarie, and Pat Curran will face Ronnie Mann.

Darrill Schoonover is a drunk. He has a few beers in his belly by 8 a.m., followed by a few shots of whiskey, in an attempt to exact a brutal revenge on the dog that bit him. Unfortunately, it seems to be affecting his work. Schoonover gets handled by Brendan Schaub in sparring, and James McSweeney spills the beans about Darrill’s alcohol intake to Coach Rashad. Rashad and his assistant coaches tell him to cut it out, or at least wait until he’s won a fight before he starts celebrating. "You can’t forget why you’re here," Rashad says. But he also sees the potential in Schoonover: "Darill is that little diamond in the rough…There’s something in Schoonover that [Team Rampage] just don’t know."

Phil Nurse stops by to work with Team Rashad, and we see that scene from yesterday, where Darrill is drunk enough to challenge Rampage to a fight. They have words; most of Rampage’s words involve some reference to "titties." Schoonover wants to take on Rampage in a sparring session, or at the very least head-butt him.

The next fight is announced: Schoonover vs. Zak Jensen. We figured Darrill would get a tougher opponent, but maybe his performance in practice has made Rashad nervous. Anyway, it looks like another easy win for Team Rashad. "Titties!", Rampage shouts after Darrill’s name is called. "Fuck you bitch," Darrill replies. "Got milk, bitch? Got milk?", Rampage says. Darrill nearly goes after Rampage, but Rashad breaks them up. "Walk up on me again, your ass gonna be in trouble, trust me," Rampage says. "You feel froggy, then jump."

Last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter began with Matt Mitrione tweaking his shoulder while rolling with Titties. Back in his football days, he would just take a cortisone shot and get right back into action. But Rashad tells Matt that he ain’t getting no damn cortisone shot, because of the damage it’ll do in the long run. He’s just going to have to suck it up and deal.

Marcus Jones is itching to fight next, and asks Rashad — who still has control of the picks — to give him a match. Rashad keeps it mysterious, telling Big Baby he very well might be fighting next; who can say, really? Jones interprets it as a promise, and gets hyped up: "It was like I was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, you know what I’m sayin’?"

Rampage is understandably bummed out by the fact that his team still hasn’t won a fight. Losing messes with Rampage’s sex life, which doesn’t need any more setbacks. The team practices aren’t doing much to encourage him, either. Zak Jensen is unable to perform a drill where he has to shimmy to the cage with a guy on top of him. He’s a good wrestler, apparently, but shuts down when he’s on his back; even Kimbo controls him from top position. Scott Junk says that Zak talked himself up so much when he first arrived at the house, but he’s just a "turd" at practice. Rampage won’t get his hopes up if Zak is picked to fight.